Page 62 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

“Good.”

I intend to discover what the hell happened on the decking, and something tells me I won’t like what I find out.

20

KAT

“Daddy!”

I bang on the door.

Muffled voices are far away.

“… thousand?”

“Daddy!” I yell louder. Maybe he can’t hear me.

Silence.

A man says a bad word.

“… real werewolf.”

That word again.

I roll it around my tongue. Werewolf. Don’t know what it means, but maybe it’s another bad word.

“Dad!” I yell. “Daddy. I?—”

“Shut up!”

I recoil from the violence in his voice.

My eyes are big as I scramble away from the door, sprint so fast down the stairs that I fall down the last few of them, grazing my knees. I don’t even feel the pain. I get to my feet and snatch up a filthy blanket as I run to huddle in the corner.

My eyes well with tears.

What did I do wrong?

I wish I could undo it. I wish and I wish, but if I don’t know what I did, how can I fix it?

Mommy said wishes come true if you wish and wish for it. Hers did.

Why don’t mine?

Footsteps move toward me.

I squeeze my arms around my knees, hoping it’s not the same men as before. The ones with hungry stares who pinched my arm and poked my belly. They peeled my lips away from my teeth as they stared, then sighed as if disappointed.

I hold my breath when I hear that sound from before. The one I only heard before from cowboy TV shows.

I’m breathing fast, so scared, and I don’t know why.

The door swings open and a wolf howls.

It howls and howls.

I wrench myself upright, breathing hard, confused when my arm won’t move and there’s an unfamiliar man with gray hair in black sweatpants standing at a window, looking out.

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